Benefit of the Doubt

There is an interesting Torah law that states that a judge who has witnessed
a crime is disqualified from acting as a judge in that case. The reason being
that a person who witnessed a crime with his own eyes will not be able to
objectively examine the defense case. True justice can only be done when the
benefit of the doubt can be properly examined.

In workshops I conduct for parents, children and spouses seeking a better
relationship between them, we have found that the best way to resolve a conflict
is to first try to reduce the intensity of the negative feelings the parties
have for each other.

I found that the following written exercise can be of great assistance to
some people:

1) Describe the negative feelings you have toward your child/parent/spouse.

2) On a scale of 1-100, rate how intense your negative feelings are.

3) If you were hired to serve as your child/parent/spouse's defense attorney
in a court of law, how would you describe the reasons for his or her action?

4) On a scale of 1-100, how strongly do you believe your defense arguments to
be true?

5) Rate how intense your negative feelings are now, on a scale of 1-100.

The change in the intensity of the feelings may differ from person to person
and from situation to situation, but it is very likely that the figure in #5
will be significantly lower than the figure in #2. It is amazing how this simple
mental exercise will reduce the intensity of emotions such as anger, hurt,
shame, etc., and the pain associated with them.

There are other ways in which engaging our minds to describe to ourselves certain
events and situations will drastically affect our feelings about them. For
example, we can describe a child or parent's action by saying "He stabbed
me in the back", and feel a strong stabbing pain. We can reduce it by
describing it as "He punched me in the back." We can choose to
stay there, or, if we want to reduce it further, we can describe it as "He
was not honest with me," and so on.

Why not take the wonderful tool called the brain that G‑d has given us, and
utilize it to work for us rather than against us? By giving our loved ones the
benefit of the doubt and using different descriptions to describe a negative
action, we may not change the other person; but it will definitely change our
feelings and reduce our pain, thereby enabling us to handle the situation more
effectively, and perhaps even find solutions to some of the problems.

Rabbi Yaakov Lieder has served as a teacher and principal, and in a variety of other educational positions, for more than 30 years in Israel, the U.S., and Sydney, Australia. He is the founder and director of the Support Centre to aid families struggling with relationship and child-rearing issues. Click here for more articles by Rabbi Lieder.